tldr: I’d like to set up a reverse proxy with a domain and an SSL cert so my partner and I can access a few selfhosted services on the internet but I’m not sure what the best/safest way to do it is. Asking my partner to use tailsclae or wireguard is asking too much unfortunately. I was curious to know what you all recommend.

I have some services running on my LAN that I currently access via tailscale. Some of these services would see some benefit from being accessible on the internet (ex. Immich sharing via a link, switching over from Plex to Jellyfin without requiring my family to learn how to use a VPN, homeassistant voice stuff, etc.) but I’m kind of unsure what the best approach is. Hosting services on the internet has risk and I’d like to reduce that risk as much as possible.

  1. I know a reverse proxy would be beneficial here so I can put all the services on one box and access them via subdomains but where should I host that proxy? On my LAN using a dynamic DNS service? In the cloud? If in the cloud, should I avoid a plan where you share cpu resources with other users and get a dedicated box?

  2. Should I purchase a memorable domain or a domain with a random string of characters so no one could reasonably guess it? Does it matter?

  3. What’s the best way to geo-restrict access? Fail2ban? Realistically, the only people that I might give access to live within a couple hundred miles of me.

  4. Any other tips or info you care to share would be greatly appreciated.

  5. Feel free to talk me out of it as well.

  • Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com
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    4 hours ago

    I did think about cron but, long ago, I heard it wasn’t best practice to update through cron because the lack of logs makes things difficult to see where things went wrong, when they do.

    I’ve got automatic-upgrades running on stuff so it’s mostly fine. Dockge is running purely to give me a way to upgrade docker images without having to ssh. It’s just the monthly routine of “apt update && apt upgrade -y” *5 that sucks.

    Thank you for the advice though. I’ll probably set cron to update the images with the script as you suggest. I have a “maintenance” homarr page as a budget uptime kuma so I can quickly look there to make sure everything is pinging at least. I made the page so I can quickly get to everyone’s dockge, pihole and nginx but the pings were a happy accident.